AVA Gallery and Arts Center Welcomes New Executive Director

Paul “Trip” N. Anderson III officially began his tenure as the new Executive Director of AVA Gallery and Art Center (AVA) On November 1, 2016. Outgoing Executive Director Bente Torjusen’s thirty-year tenure was honored in a retirement celebration in early December.

Trip was hired after a nationwide search conducted by Arts Consulting Group (ACG). “We could not be more pleased to have Trip joining us at AVA.“ said AVA Board President H. Sloan Mayor. “When looking for a visionary leader, someone who could build on our successes and help guide us to the next level of sustainability in the Upper Valley, all signs pointed to Trip.”

Anderson has called the Upper Valley home since 1999 when he moved to the Eastman community in Grantham, NH. Trained as an artisan, art historian, and preservation architect, he arrives at AVA having most recently served as Grants Officer for the Worcester Art Museum over the past five years. While there he developed a highly successful grants program, served as the Museum’s team leader in the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s inclusive accessibility initiative, and collaborated with the City of Worcester in leading the effort to attain the Commonwealth’s designation for Worcester’s Salisbury Cultural District, www.salisburyculturaldistrict.org.

Anderson praised Bente Torjusen’s contributions to AVA: “Through Bente’s and the Board’s leadership, AVA Gallery and Art Center has achieved the stature and pedigree which make it a regional thought-leader for the arts and cultural community. I am excited about the opportunity to forge AVA’s next chapter, building its sustainable future in the Upper Valley,” said Anderson. “Success creates even greater opportunities. I feel honored to join a most capable team – creative and purpose- driven — who are eager to guide AVA through its next phase and welcome ideas from the larger community to further build on AVA’s accomplishments.”

Trip Anderson is a graduate of Harvard University in Cambridge, MA where he earned a degree in Fine Arts, cum laude. He has served as instructor / guest lecturer in visual arts and design communications at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, the Boston Architectural Center, Bemidji State University in Minnesota, and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay, WI.

About AVA Gallery and Art Center (Alliance for the Visual Arts/AVA) is dedicated to promoting the visual arts through exhibitions and educational programs that nurture, support and challenge Vermont and New Hampshire artists, and to providing art classes for children, teens and adults of all levels and abilities. Located at 11 Bank Street right off Colburn Park in Lebanon, NH, the gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 11am to 5pm (7pm on Thursdays). Admission is free, and the gallery is accessible to the handicapped. AVA is supported in part by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts & the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. www.avagallery.org